Last night one of the lots we have been looking at came down in price to 125K, and my father in law routed me to this site http://www.cedarbuildings.com/ where they have a 28'X 32' 6" X 6" posts frame for $24,788.00 American. Assuming the 4 x frame cost (to get the turnkey price for the house) rule of thumb holds, we could actually do this.
We're still pondering solar slabs and the saltbox on this site and the saltbox in the Passive Solar book I just got but it's coming down to whether or not we want to do this, rather than whether we can do it.
Does anyone know what, of any, resemblance a building loan and a regular loan have to each other? Not the mechanics, I've read up on those, more like how much they'll let you have. We're prequalified for a bit over 300K to go out & buy a new house (we're planning on doing the full pre-approval once we get tax returns back). If we can get a building loan for similiar, we're definitely in business. (Eeep!)
I assume your talking about a construction loan. I belive you could get close to the same money. We looked at it briefly 4 years ago and I remember it was kinda pain in the ass. They will give you money for the land ....then give you chunks of money there after . Depending on what you get done and if it passes their inspection. I belive the interest rates are a bit higher... Then when your done you re-mortage your house. That's that in a nut shell .... it's been a while since I looked ...good luck.
Jeff
Thanks. :)
At this point, DH and I are switching our focus a bit. Instead of getting as much as our available credit will allow, we're looking at doing some serious downsizing of stuff (over the next two weeks *shudder* so we can have our first open house by the end of February and hopefully get our current place unloaded by late May/ early June without actually losing money on the deal) and moving into something under 1000 square feet with a decent-sized lot. That way we can get the mortgage paid down faster, get some equity, and add on in a few years (although I'm planning an attached solar greenhouse a lot sooner). DH is thinking of building some sort of outbuilding in the back yard to use as a library, too (I'm partial to jonsey's watchtower from the 200 square foot contest).
I swear, selling and buying a house is going to give me more grey hairs than my two kids have! :-/
PM Mommymem, she can direct you to a guy in Conway that specializes in Owner-Builder Just make sure you mention us ;)
Ye! go Ailsa,:D
Send me pics if you build it. If you want to e-mail me I can send you a dxf of the plan, you should be able to plug it into your drawing program and play round with it.
Well, we went out & looked at land yesterday. DH liked the plot we saw and is checking into others. He's also thinking of buying's John's Solar Saltbox plan and seeing how much it would cost to get Northeast Precision Panel to make it up for us. We're also looking at pre-approval this week (finally!). Now all I have to do is clean house and purge our belongings to make it all nice & spiffy for the realtor next Thursday. The current house is going on the market soon now. (Anyone else find this stage a bit dizzying?)
Good progress, Ailsa. Nice to see your little plan evolving. It's kind of addicting like a little soap opera. Please bring us the next episode. :)